Time for the Toshiba Qosmio F45 AV412 to take the ranks in Laptop Logic's testing labs. We pace this laptop to the highest extent, gauge its features, and measure its performance. This mid-sized 15.4' widescreen (WXGA) in 16:10 ratio carries an HD-DVD player, biometric scanner, harmon-kardon speaker system with 'subwoofer' port on the bottom, and a multitude of other high end technology features. Toshiba is touting it as the multimedia reference platform in the Qosmio line-up - packing it with the latest and greatest (whatever that's worth) Windows Vista Ultimate. Let's see how it performs shall we?
Design & Features
Time for the Toshiba Qosmio F45 AV412 to take the ranks in Laptop Logic's testing labs. We pace this laptop to the highest extent, gauge its features, and measure its performance. This mid-sized 15.4' widescreen (WXGA) in 16:10 ratio carries an HD-DVD player, biometric scanner, harmon-kardon speaker system with 'subwoofer' port on the bottom, and a multitude of other high end technology features. Toshiba is touting it as the multimedia reference platform in the Qosmio line-up - packing it with the latest and greatest (whatever that's worth) Windows Vista Ultimate. Let's see how it performs shall we?
Price as reviewed / Starting price $1,499
Processor: 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7100
Memory: 2GB, 667MHz DDR2
Hard drive: 250GB, 4,200rpm
Chipset: Intel GM965
Graphics: Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 (shared
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate
Dimensions: (WDH) 14.9 x 11.1 x 1.9 inches
Screen size: 15.4 inches (diagonal)
System weight / Weight AC 6.7/7.8 pounds
Design
I'm not sure where to categorize the Qosmio F45, as it seems to be a delicate balance of minimalism and extrovert packed into one. The shiny black/blue flecked lid with the obtuse 'QOSMIO' wording is not for the brand shy groupies; however, flipping the lid lays to simple aesthetics with a mono-color keyboard/palm area, with accents of silver and blue LED lighting. It's very attractive, although bigger than normal; I liked the look of it. I would call it 'robust' rather than 'bulky' - it feels like it's built for taking some hitsalthough highly not recommended.
Under first impressions, the sleek, shiny 'black' casing of the LCD is awesome. However, even I feel victim to the phrase of 'black' when in actuality - it has dark, reflective blue speckles in it to give it that rich undertone of a 'shadow'. Flipping the lid open reveals a stark contrasting piano white surface. No doubts, the casing gets a 4/5 rating - only missing top marks because the lid scratches and gets dirty so quickly, and easily.
Keyboard
The keyboard feels light, and natural. It has just the right amount of spring, and isn't too hard to type on. It's more full sized than an ultra portable, which is nice, however I sometimes feel the keyboard area is smaller than what it could be with such a large surface area available as shown in the pictures.
Size & Weight
No mistakes here, this is not a thin and light machine. Although not the heaviest of the bunch, it clocks in just under 8 pounds with its battery loaded. The size is nothing to brag about for portability either, measuring a full 2 inches thick with the lid closed, and occupies 15x11' of surface area. It's a laptop that seems bigger than it is, because of the multimedia dials on the side - it makes it feel almost like a 17' laptop.
Heat, Noise, Upgrading
Heat was a minimum, in fact, in all tests the laptop didn't get near as hot as some other systems we've tested. Granted there is a decent amount of airflow space with the chassis being so thick, at least it's a plus for users who want to use it on the road. Noise was at a minimum, and it even has software to 'scale down' the speed of your HD-DVD drive to minimize noise even further. That's intuitive, although perhaps overkill.
Upgrading will take some finesse, as the machine already comes equipped with 2 gigs of DDR2 667 ram - you can't fit any more in there unless you go with two 2GB sticks (maximum of 4GB). The only thing left is the hard drive and CPU. The CPU, although a dual core clocked in at 1.8 - seems a little sluggish for the Windows Vista gathering. It could be just be hard drive however, because that is definitely begging for an upgrade. We just couldn't resist and dropped in a screaming new Hitachi 7K200 drive; check out the performance boost we got from the Hitachi 200GB 7200rpm drive here.
Connectivity
Connectivity is the norm, although somewhat lacking for a 'multimedia' titled laptop. There is no DVI out! What a shame - there is only VGA output. The model up from this touts an HDMI out port, which would be awesome to utilize with the HD-DVD drivebut this model does not have that feature. Something to consider a plus though is the native support for wireless N. This surprised me, but not as surprising as the unit NOT having Bluetooth built in. This is something that just screams as missing from a multimedia machine, although this is more of an entry level model.
Front
LED lights give status of system power, battery, HDD, CPU, wireless, and charging. Beneath these is the HD-DVD drive. To the right provides an IR port, something you don't see too often anymore. Here's a better picture of the LED status lights:
Right
The right side of the laptop features 2 USB 2.0 ports, the wireless toggle switch, line in, line out, headphones jack, and a modem port.
Rear
The back sports the power connector, vent slots, a standard VGA output, S-video out and an Ethernet port along with a lock slot.
Left
On the left we find two more USB 2.0 ports, an Express Card slot, a multiformat memory card reader, and a mini Firewire port.
I would give the connectivity of this unit a 3/5 - having an Express Card slot is great, but not too many devices use it yet. No Bluetooth? No digital video output on a multimedia laptop? Give me a break!
Features
Web-Cam
The webcam provided is your everyday 1.3 mega-pixel webcam, and runs just like many (if not all) before it. I'm still hoping for better integration of a 2 or 3 megapixel lid-cam! Suffice it to say, video capture above 320x240 is not recommended, but home grown video recording for YouTuber's may appreciate the camera.
Display
Bright - colorful - but only at 1280x800!? Come on, what's the point of an HD-DVD drive if you can't power it to 1080p!? It also turns out that between my original and then the replacement evaluation unit, both had somewhat defective displays. Note that it was intermittent and was highly dependent on lamp brightness, but make no mistake: there was a LOT of flicker with the display. It was really prevalent with a lot of white on the screen, and would happen in spurts, usually taking the unit between 2-5 minutes to display this odd 'flicker' behavior. Everything else about the display was nice however; color tones were rich and the display surface was shiny with a well distributed backlight. If only it had a higher resolution and didn't flicker all the time on the highest brightness setting - it reminded me of a fluorescent light that was on its way out - without the noise however.
Audio
The speakers for the F45 are located on the front of the unit, with the 'subwoofer' on the bottom. As far as laptop speakers go, they provide a decent amount of volume with enough gusto for some great movie experiences. Although not nearly as powerful as a set of regular powered speakers, they did a pretty decent job. Keep in mind however, that if you use these along with 5.1 encoding with DVD's or HD DVD's - you will get some distortion. I'm not sure why, but enabling it to Pro-Logic/ Stereo provided a much cleaner, powerful sound.
HD DVD
This unit touts the next generation HD DVD drive, and although this is really cool, having a display that shows no real benefit (only 1280x800) is sort of defeating the point. While the picture is only slightly better, you'll find that battery life is sucked like a ICEE drink on a hot day. Also, I'm not a fan of manufacturers that place an optical drive towards the front - it limits the generic capability of resting it on a laptop riser. Trying to test this with two different stands proved impossible as it would cause the HD DVD drive to try to eject, then seek, eject, then seek (repeat indefinitely) which, if you can guess - made the whole point of a computer rather useless as it caused the machine to perform sluggishly. With no high resolution display, digital video output, or HD-DVD burning capability, this seems more like a novelty, just for bragging rights.
Performance
If you wish to read about the performance measures we take with out units, please read here to learn more about the tests. While models with discrete graphics may lend themselves more towards gaming, we did not perform gaming tests on this unit given its lackluster integrated graphics.
Even though Intel’s Core 2 Duo models are excellent processors, it won’t stand a chance with games with a sub-par video card, and the integrated Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 is almost laughable when it comes to gaming. Gamers will want to upgrade to the F45-AV425, which adds NVIDIA graphics (plus a faster CPU and bigger hard drive) for $150 more.
The F45 didn't fare well in PCMark 2005, likely due to the slower CPU, HDD and losing some memory to the integrated graphics.
The F45 gathered a dusty average of 69 – I know, laugh all you want, but numbers don’t lie and this machine isn’t the fastest of the bunch.
Hooray! Finally beating a system we just recently reviewed in some regards, but not by much – it too has the dreaded “integrated” 3DMark score of 544. Again, not a gamer’s best friend, more like – spreadsheet and music pirating, I mean sharing. Although it struggled immensely in these tests, it did perform on average for a system carrying these specifications.
Again, even the DVD battery performance was nothing to write home about. The battery performance on this unit is rather dismal, hovering in around 90 minutes for a standard DVD. That was cut in nearly HALF watching an HD DVD movie, which lasted just under an hour. Do yourself a favor and don’t think this unit will gather much in-flight movie time. You’ll be bored and snored to death by your window seat buddy before you even make it to the middle of most movies, so bring your power adapter.
Running a more standard usage test, we were able to get just over 2 hours (135 minutes) with the LCD brightness set to minimum and on a maximum power saver scheme. This should give most people enough time to email, blog, upload a picture and spill some coffee on the road when they need it.
Conclusion
Pros:
- Stylish
- HD DVD drive
- Biometric Scanner
- 2GB RAM
- Large HDD
Cons:
- Lackluster performance
- Poor battery life, especially when watching movies
- No HDMI/DVI capability
- Flickering Display on highest brightness
- Only 1280x800 resolution
- Slow hard drive
- Poor value
Maybe I’m just pessimistic, but when a unit comes my way with obvious flaws, and sticker price reaching $1,500 – I’m a little taken back. The display issue was the biggest thing, but also the numbers for performance weren’t that great. Sure it’s stylish, and has everything the ‘average’ consumer needs and maybe wants, but I’m in serious distress over the quality and amount of money that average consumer will spend.
Being touted as a “multimedia” laptop, I find the system lacking in a number of ways. The hard drive is slow, the CPU is on the low end, and with no dedicated GPU, gaming is almost impossible. What seems to be the big selling point is an HD DVD drive – but even then, it only READS HD DVD’s and does not burn them. It’s a mediocre addition to an already saturated market of mid-sized laptops, in which other manufacturers provide better bang for the buck.
If Toshiba can come back with a proper display for the HD DVD drive and a feature set not lacking some of the major options a multimedia laptop requires (Bluetooth, discrete graphics, etc), this stylish machine would be much more competitive.
"Design & Features
Time for the Toshiba Qosmio F45 AV412 to take the ranks in Laptop Logic's testing labs. We pace this laptop to the highest extent, gauge its features, and measure its performance. This mid-sized 15.4' widescreen (WXGA) in 16:10 ratio carries an HD-DVD player, biometric scanner, harmon-kardon speaker system with 'subwoofer' port on the bottom, and a multitude of other high end technology features. Toshiba is touting it as the multimedia reference platform in the Qosmio line-up - packing it with the latest and greatest (whatever that's worth) Windows Vista Ultimate. Let's see how it performs shall we?
Price as reviewed / Starting price $1,499
Processor: 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7100
Memory: 2GB, 667MHz DDR2
Hard drive: 250GB, 4,200rpm
Chipset: Intel GM965
Graphics: Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 (shared
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate
Dimensions: (WDH) 14.9 x 11.1 x 1.9 inches
Screen size: 15.4 inches (diagonal)
System weight / Weight AC 6.7/7.8 pounds
Design
I'm not sure where to categorize the Qosmio F45, as it seems to be a delicate balance of minimalism and extrovert packed into one. The shiny black/blue flecked lid with the obtuse 'QOSMIO' wording is not for the brand shy groupies; however, flipping the lid lays to simple aesthetics with a mono-color keyboard/palm area, with accents of silver and blue LED lighting. It's very attractive, although bigger than normal; I liked the look of it. I would call it 'robust' rather than 'bulky' - it feels like it's built for taking some hitsalthough highly not recommended.
Under first impressions, the sleek, shiny 'black' casing of the LCD is awesome. However, even I feel victim to the phrase of 'black' when in actuality - it has dark, reflective blue speckles in it to give it that rich undertone of a 'shadow'. Flipping the lid open reveals a stark contrasting piano white surface. No doubts, the casing gets a 4/5 rating - only missing top marks because the lid scratches and gets dirty so quickly, and easily.
Keyboard
The keyboard feels light, and natural. It has just the right amount of spring, and isn't too hard to type on. It's more full sized than an ultra portable, which is nice, however I sometimes feel the keyboard area is smaller than what it could be with such a large surface area available as shown in the pictures.
Size & Weight
No mistakes here, this is not a thin and light machine. Although not the heaviest of the bunch, it clocks in just under 8 pounds with its battery loaded. The size is nothing to brag about for portability either, measuring a full 2 inches thick with the lid closed, and occupies 15x11' of surface area. It's a laptop that seems bigger than it is, because of the multimedia dials on the side - it makes it feel almost like a 17' laptop.
Heat, Noise, Upgrading
Heat was a minimum, in fact, in all tests the laptop didn't get near as hot as some other systems we've tested. Granted there is a decent amount of airflow space with the chassis being so thick, at least it's a plus for users who want to use it on the road. Noise was at a minimum, and it even has software to 'scale down' the speed of your HD-DVD drive to minimize noise even further. That's intuitive, although perhaps overkill.
Upgrading will take some finesse, as the machine already comes equipped with 2 gigs of DDR2 667 ram - you can't fit any more in there unless you go with two 2GB sticks (maximum of 4GB). The only thing left is the hard drive and CPU. The CPU, although a dual core clocked in at 1.8 - seems a little sluggish for the Windows Vista gathering. It could be just be hard drive however, because that is definitely begging for an upgrade. We just couldn't resist and dropped in a screaming new Hitachi 7K200 drive; check out the performance boost we got from the Hitachi 200GB 7200rpm drive here.
Connectivity
Connectivity is the norm, although somewhat lacking for a 'multimedia' titled laptop. There is no DVI out! What a shame - there is only VGA output. The model up from this touts an HDMI out port, which would be awesome to utilize with the HD-DVD drivebut this model does not have that feature. Something to consider a plus though is the native support for wireless N. This surprised me, but not as surprising as the unit NOT having Bluetooth built in. This is something that just screams as missing from a multimedia machine, although this is more of an entry level model.
Front
LED lights give status of system power, battery, HDD, CPU, wireless, and charging. Beneath these is the HD-DVD drive. To the right provides an IR port, something you don't see too often anymore. Here's a better picture of the LED status lights:
Right
The right side of the laptop features 2 USB 2.0 ports, the wireless toggle switch, line in, line out, headphones jack, and a modem port.
Rear
The back sports the power connector, vent slots, a standard VGA output, S-video out and an Ethernet port along with a lock slot.
Left
On the left we find two more USB 2.0 ports, an Express Card slot, a multiformat memory card reader, and a mini Firewire port.
I would give the connectivity of this unit a 3/5 - having an Express Card slot is great, but not too many devices use it yet. No Bluetooth? No digital video output on a multimedia laptop? Give me a break!
Features
Web-Cam
The webcam provided is your everyday 1.3 mega-pixel webcam, and runs just like many (if not all) before it. I'm still hoping for better integration of a 2 or 3 megapixel lid-cam! Suffice it to say, video capture above 320x240 is not recommended, but home grown video recording for YouTuber's may appreciate the camera.
Display
Bright - colorful - but only at 1280x800!? Come on, what's the point of an HD-DVD drive if you can't power it to 1080p!? It also turns out that between my original and then the replacement evaluation unit, both had somewhat defective displays. Note that it was intermittent and was highly dependent on lamp brightness, but make no mistake: there was a LOT of flicker with the display. It was really prevalent with a lot of white on the screen, and would happen in spurts, usually taking the unit between 2-5 minutes to display this odd 'flicker' behavior. Everything else about the display was nice however; color tones were rich and the display surface was shiny with a well distributed backlight. If only it had a higher resolution and didn't flicker all the time on the highest brightness setting - it reminded me of a fluorescent light that was on its way out - without the noise however.
Audio
The speakers for the F45 are located on the front of the unit, with the 'subwoofer' on the bottom. As far as laptop speakers go, they provide a decent amount of volume with enough gusto for some great movie experiences. Although not nearly as powerful as a set of regular powered speakers, they did a pretty decent job. Keep in mind however, that if you use these along with 5.1 encoding with DVD's or HD DVD's - you will get some distortion. I'm not sure why, but enabling it to Pro-Logic/ Stereo provided a much cleaner, powerful sound.
HD DVD
This unit touts the next generation HD DVD drive, and although this is really cool, having a display that shows no real benefit (only 1280x800) is sort of defeating the point. While the picture is only slightly better, you'll find that battery life is sucked like a ICEE drink on a hot day. Also, I'm not a fan of manufacturers that place an optical drive towards the front - it limits the generic capability of resting it on a laptop riser. Trying to test this with two different stands proved impossible as it would cause the HD DVD drive to try to eject, then seek, eject, then seek (repeat indefinitely) which, if you can guess - made the whole point of a computer rather useless as it caused the machine to perform sluggishly. With no high resolution display, digital video output, or HD-DVD burning capability, this seems more like a novelty, just for bragging rights.
Performance
If you wish to read about the performance measures we take with out units, please read here to learn more about the tests. While models with discrete graphics may lend themselves more towards gaming, we did not perform gaming tests on this unit given its lackluster integrated graphics.
Even though Intel’s Core 2 Duo models are excellent processors, it won’t stand a chance with games with a sub-par video card, and the integrated Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 is almost laughable when it comes to gaming. Gamers will want to upgrade to the F45-AV425, which adds NVIDIA graphics (plus a faster CPU and bigger hard drive) for $150 more.
The F45 didn't fare well in PCMark 2005, likely due to the slower CPU, HDD and losing some memory to the integrated graphics.
The F45 gathered a dusty average of 69 – I know, laugh all you want, but numbers don’t lie and this machine isn’t the fastest of the bunch.
Hooray! Finally beating a system we just recently reviewed in some regards, but not by much – it too has the dreaded “integrated” 3DMark score of 544. Again, not a gamer’s best friend, more like – spreadsheet and music pirating, I mean sharing. Although it struggled immensely in these tests, it did perform on average for a system carrying these specifications.
Again, even the DVD battery performance was nothing to write home about. The battery performance on this unit is rather dismal, hovering in around 90 minutes for a standard DVD. That was cut in nearly HALF watching an HD DVD movie, which lasted just under an hour. Do yourself a favor and don’t think this unit will gather much in-flight movie time. You’ll be bored and snored to death by your window seat buddy before you even make it to the middle of most movies, so bring your power adapter.
Running a more standard usage test, we were able to get just over 2 hours (135 minutes) with the LCD brightness set to minimum and on a maximum power saver scheme. This should give most people enough time to email, blog, upload a picture and spill some coffee on the road when they need it.
Conclusion
Pros:
- Stylish
- HD DVD drive
- Biometric Scanner
- 2GB RAM
- Large HDD
Cons:
- Lackluster performance
- Poor battery life, especially when watching movies
- No HDMI/DVI capability
- Flickering Display on highest brightness
- Only 1280x800 resolution
- Slow hard drive
- Poor value
Maybe I’m just pessimistic, but when a unit comes my way with obvious flaws, and sticker price reaching $1,500 – I’m a little taken back. The display issue was the biggest thing, but also the numbers for performance weren’t that great. Sure it’s stylish, and has everything the ‘average’ consumer needs and maybe wants, but I’m in serious distress over the quality and amount of money that average consumer will spend.
Being touted as a “multimedia” laptop, I find the system lacking in a number of ways. The hard drive is slow, the CPU is on the low end, and with no dedicated GPU, gaming is almost impossible. What seems to be the big selling point is an HD DVD drive – but even then, it only READS HD DVD’s and does not burn them. It’s a mediocre addition to an already saturated market of mid-sized laptops, in which other manufacturers provide better bang for the buck.
If Toshiba can come back with a proper display for the HD DVD drive and a feature set not lacking some of the major options a multimedia laptop requires (Bluetooth, discrete graphics, etc), this stylish machine would be much more competitive.
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